Well it’s a bit of a windy road that leads me to writing today. It would probably be of some benefit to you to first travel down that road before reading what I say below. The road starts with a post by the Spanish Inquisitor here, then leads to here as a theist stop and then to John B here. Lastly, I would also recommend going to Beyond Belief and watching Session 9. I have to say this is really more of a start than anything else but I’m curious what others might say so here we go…

So is doing something in the name of an idea definitive of the idea? Are those who act in the name of an idea examples of the idea? The arguments made by anyone of one idea to discredit an opposing idea would have to argue “yes” because they always point to the bad deeds done and the bad people working in the name of that rival idea. Likewise, the defense to these assertions usually is to distance the person or the deeds from the idea under attack. Christians have the most experience with this, mostly on the defensive side. Bring up mormons and most christians say they’re not “real” christians. Bring up the Inquisition and catholics will argue it got out of hand by twisted people who “lost their way” whereas born agains and other protestants will say “well that’s the catholic church for you”. Bring up the burnings of so called “heretics” and “witches” in places like Salem and protestants will make excuses similar to the catholic’s regarding the Inquisition. Muslims are also on the defensive having to argue that people like al quaeda who fly planes into buildings are extremists and not examples of “true islam”. Theists likewise will point to leaders like Stalin and show what horrors atheism inflicts whereas atheists will argue Stalin’s atheism was merely a tool for his quest for obtaining and maintaining power.

Where does this lead us? I would have to say nowhere. What if we found that someone acted in the name of an idea but didn’t personally subscribe to it? Machiavelli advises in The Prince that it’s imperative that a prince SHOW he has “integrity, humanity, and religion” which doesn’t necessarily mean HAVE these traits; therefore, it can be advantageous to exhibit faith in an idea and appear to act in the name of an idea yet still not truly subscribe to the idea. So then can we fault the idea? I would have to conclude that you couldn’t on this alone.

Now what if we were capable of finding out definitively that someone who did bad acted in the name of an idea and not merely under the cloak of that idea, in other words, it was believed by the perpetrator that the idea was true and that the action was necessary in the name of the idea rather than using the idea as a smokescreen, we still couldn’t determine the validity of the idea since it could be argued that the person was misguided and not indicative of the “true idea”. That’s all well and good but what if the idea was muddled from the start? What if the idea was so clouded with contradictions and had numerous competing interpretations of it that either it was easy to become misguided or there was no definitive way to determine if someone was truly misguided? Then I think the value of the idea can be questioned. Is theism at fault because it lead to people flying planes into buildings or is islam at fault because it’s not the “correct” theism? Perhaps the fault is only the particular version of islam the terrorists subscribed to? How can we tell? The idea of theism has such varied versions that the value of theism therefore becomes suspect. We can all agree that killing in the name of a Beatles’ track is misguided to put it mildly since there’s nothing in the song that can be read as instructions to kill but there are passages in various theistic tomes that can easily be read as instructions to kill or any number of other atrocities; therefore, I don’t see it as the fault of the killer as incorrectly reading the text of theism but rather the text of theism being unclear to the point that one could arrive at such a reading.

But of course we have to weigh the good and the bad, right? Sure, an idea might be muddled such that it lends itself to interpretations that lead to bad behavior, but what about the interpretations that lead to good behavior? That has to factor into the scoring, doesn’t it? This is part of the argument made in session 9 of Beyond Belief by Woodward and Konner against Harris and Dawkins. Does a Martin Luther King Jr. offset an Osama bin Laden? Do the passages of the bible that inspired the abolishionists in the US against slavery offset the passages chosen by the South and later the Confederacy which said to them they were justified in owning slaves? Should we even be totaling a score? Is there an outstanding good that results from theism which is worth the cost of the negatives? Is there a negative whose cost far exceeds the return from the goods?

4063 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Fyoumademesayit.com%2F2007%2F08%2F27%2Fvaluation-of-an-idea%2FValuation+of+an+Idea2007-08-27+06%3A10%3A00PhillyChiefhttp%3A%2F%2Fmagicanimation.com%2FYMMSI%2F%3Fp%3D40 to “Valuation of an Idea”

I wouldn't get into the relative goodness/badness of theism at all. I would assert that any worldview leading to so much misery throughout history must be bad, by definition; the good exceptions are flukes. On the other hand, I would not necessarily attribute the villainies of the world solely to religion. I would merely say that religion affords an excellent opportunity for bad people to empower themselves and find rationales justifying their evil. The ignorant masses — and those will always be around, alas — follow blindly. I don't think the disappearance of religion would result in a worldwide golden age of goodness; but lacking a religious motivation, evildoers will have to find some other hook, like "patriotism" or "fan loyalty," on which to hang their heinous actions. Unfortunately, there are plenty of such hooks available. Religion is merely the most convenient one. Of course, to those of us who think "faith" is hogwash, it seems a pity that so many have staked so much on so little.

It could just as easily be argued the bad are flukes and either the majority of results or the intended results are good. At the end I arrived at the questions of whether the good makes the bad an acceptable risk or cost. I think that’s worth asking since the objections to people like Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris is they only focus on the bad and never comment on the good. So ok, if we do take that time, and keep a score card, does good outweigh bad? Even so, is there at least one bad that makes it a dealbreaker? Imagine if they invented a car that had a perpetual motion engine so no fuel costs, no bad emissions, etc. How wonderful would that be? The positives are astronomical. One bad – occasionally it explodes. Is the car worth it?

I would not argue that there would be no more bad if theism went away and I agree that there are simply good and bad people on both sides of the theist/atheist arguments. If that becomes part of the valuation process, then I think it hurts the theists since their idea comes bundled with a moral code that’s supposed to address that yet if you argue that there are either bad people who are theists or people who do bad because of theism, then that moral code is no better than any other.

If theism promotes a moral code that in reality doesn’t yield better overall results than other moral codes, then it’s no better than any other. If, though, it is responsible for extreme goods or bads than those extremes must be considered beyond simply looking at an average score. Example:Due to theism, someone may be willing to risk or sacrifice their lives to save others and such an idea might be harder to come by without theism.Due to theism, someone may be willing to risk or sacrifice their lives to kill others and such an idea might be harder to come by without theism.

Let’s say without theism a person would be less likely to do either. So the scorecard would have theism and atheism tied, but there’s more to it than average score.

Theism always loses on the scorecard. If even one person is encouraged to do evil by quoting his/her “sacred” book in a logically consistent interpretation, then religion must, at very least, reevaluate that book. As we know, the bible is god’s word and cannot be reevaluated. So Judeo-Christianity is responsible for some evil. On the other hand, I don’t see a demonstration that it’s responsible for any good. People who perform benevolent acts merely because they’re trying to buy their way into a fancy eternal rest home are not really, at heart, good. What happens if you tell them the rest home’s quota is full?

The post and your comments have me thinking about a number of different things.

I really want to further encourage your visitors to do as you asked and watch not only Session 9 of Beyond Belief, but the entire conference. It is one of the best videos I have seen on the net, and look forward to this year’s edition.

I think that we get to the heart of what Sam Harris continually points out – that mainstream religion actually (by it’s very existence and the fact that most are loath to criticize it and call it what it really is – fantasy for adults) is what gives cover to fanatics. If you can’t see the basic flaw of religion – that it is bogus – then you set up an environment in which those who interpret the worst aspects of “god’s infallible word” in ways that bring harm to others are also safe from criticism. At least until it’s too late and they have already committed acts of evil. I would submit then, that it is far better to live in a world governed by rational thought, even though it’s true that you will still find acts of evil, than if you have a world filled with different fantasy religions, any of which can and will produce a certain amount of evil, by their very nature. At least rationality is not, by nature, evil in any respect – ever.

PhillyChief said to Exterminator “and I agree that there are simply good and bad people on both sides of the theist/atheist arguments”

I think this was one of the points I tried to make in my post that you linked to. Absolutely! So then we must ask, which provides a more certain framework for LESS “bad”? My own view is clear, but I know theist will argue the opposite. I think their case is weak.

There’s a constant myth expressed by theists that faith in a deity is good and morals require a deity yet most admit that there are good and bad theists just like good and bad atheists. Anyone see a contradiction here? Based on this alone, theism is superfluous.

Now go further and look at what bad things theism inspires and I think you find it’s not just superfluous and harmless but in fact superfluous and dangerous. That’s very different. Many will argue, “what does it matter if the little old lady thinks she’s going to heaven?” or “what about the comfort it gives people?” and try to sell it like a kid trying to argue keeping a puppy that followed him home. I think the modest comforts are not enough to overcome the negatives, which are far worse than a puppy shitting on the carpet.

An idea is only malevolent when it is inherently malevolent. For example, people that ascribe to the faith of Killtheism are going to be a bit more destructive than people that follow Marijuanatheism. Also, Killtheists would be far more active before noon, and would be a far less vital contributor to the profits of Frito-Lay.

All current mainstream religions are inherently benign, because they all explicitly state that murder is a bad fucking idea. Of course, certain sects of these groups are choosing to ignore that edict, believing a paragraph from Corinthians espouses dogma far grander than a commandment carved in stone and given to man by a burning bush.

Religion may be a cover for crazies, but it is not a natural evil. And most of the abusers of religion, people that exploit it to further personal vendettas like the Falwells and Osamas of the world, would have just found alternative outlets for their violence.

Violence won’t end with religion. It will only end with an enlightenend populace. And no, those things aren’t mutually exclusive.

I don’t know about “only”. If an idea is either unclear as to malevolence or makes contradictory statements concerning malevolence I think it’s value can be questioned.

most of the abusers of religion, people that exploit it to further personal vendettas like the Falwells and Osamas of the world, would have just found alternative outlets for their violence.

I did address this in the original post by concluding that you can’t fault an idea because someone acted in it’s name but didn’t subscribe to it; however, we don’t know if Falwell or Osama didn’t really subscribe to their theist ideas. All evidence points to them really subscribing, otherwise they are great actors.

Violence won’t end with religion.

I don’t believe anyone is arguing that, but a case can be made both for the idea that there is some violence that religion inspires and/or that if it has no measurable effect on curbing violence then it’s superfluous.

Andrew – Many atheists would argue that atheism was a tool for Stalin to obtain and maintain power, which is far different than the theists’ claim that atheism in some way drove Stalin to do everything he did in his quest for power. The church was a threat to Stalin which needed to be either eliminated or gelded, and atheism was a means to those ends. I advise you to read the Spanish Inquisitor’s post I linked to above which started all this as well as my comments in response to PB and J’s post which is the theist link I gave in the opening.

I agree with you that atheism isn’t an ideology in the sense that religion is because it doesn’t come bundled with any sort of moral code, but it is feasible to imagine that someone could, in the name of atheism, kill theists or destroy churches. Atheist response would surely be that such a person was misguided or insane which theists would argue would be hypocritical of us since we deny them the opportunity to do the same but the difference is there’s no message or mixed messages in atheism concerning committing such acts. This is yet another point that kills the theist argument that Stalin committed atrocities due to atheism.

It isn’t an ideology. It’s not feasible that someone would do *anything* in the “name” of atheism. I do not understand how a lack of belief could be a tool

That was sort of one of the points in my original post, that it isn’t an ideology, but the mere concept could be used as a tool to further a different agenda. One says they are doing it because atheism is right, but have the ulterior motive of destroying dissenters to their new economic system.

But actually, I have a problem with the whole outcome based analysis that we seem to be doing here. I don’t really care whether atheism or theism results in good or bad things, in the end. At least, that’s not where I want to start the analysis. Sure, you can find a million examples going either way, but if you really look at them, in most cases the good could have been done without religion, but the bad needed religion to shield the perpetrator from scorn. On the atheism side, neither good nor bad can be done in the name of, or because of, a nonexistent ideology, as Andrew correctly notes.

The problem is that you HAVE to tally a scorecard to make a proper determination, and that’s practically impossible.

What I care about, personally, and what I think is far more important, is the truth value of the proposition “God exists”, not the outcome of individual actions of people who believe or disbelieve. It seems to me that if god does not exist, then that’s the end of the question. You need to take personal responsibility for your bad things, and you need to take more credit for the good things you cause. Otherwise, we are running this world based on a belief in a fantasy, which is irrational, and one irrationality allows us to be irrational in everything.

It simply makes no sense to me to believe in something that doesn’t exist, and then base your whole life on it. If we run the world because a belief in god has good outcomes, then why don’t we encourage people to continue believing in Santa Claus until they die? Then everybody will be good, unless they want a lump of coal in the their stockings every Christmas.

Santa Claus keeps coming up as a viable analogy to this issue between theism and atheism, because it really starts the same way (via indoctrination at an early age) for much the same reason as religion (to try to motivate people to be good) and eventually is discouraged (because it’s not true). I touched on it in a very early post of mine (lo, all those many months ago – ummmm…April.)

Yes, after reading Spanish Inquisitor’s blog’s post, one of the points mentioned is that it’s not an idealogy, it’s not motivation.

I’ll expand on this a little bit, and counter that Atheism can be used as a “tool”. And answer the main gist of PhillyChief’s article.

There have been people that say if they didn’t believe in God they would go around killing and raping. That might be true, although I don’t want to meet them, God or not. That’s different from, if they didn’t believe in God, they *should* go around killing and raping.

Sure, if you believe in God, and that God likes churches and clergy, you might not want to burn them both. That doesn’t mean the reverse is true. No god doesn’t mean burnt clergy.

Stalin wouldn’t have said, “there is no God, so we must take down the church”. He would have said “We must take down the church because they’re enemies of the people, in allegiance with the bourgeoisie! Come comrades, lets see what the insides of a Bishop looks like”. It’s not a justification, it would be irrational.

The counter-argument that moderate theists make about extremists, that they’re misguided, isn’t valid. They’re using the same justification of “faith”, irrational belief. They think the extremists are wrong because they read scripture differently or follow another prophet, it’s not in relation to rational ethics, what is good, bad, extreme, or moderate.

So not only does the theist’s counter to bringing up extremists, that atheists do bad things because of atheism, isn’t true. More importantly, they’re missing the point of the argument. Religion produces extremism, dangerous ideas and beliefs, that can only be countered by rationalism, which argues against moderate religion as much as extremism equally for being irrational.

The better counter-argument would be for them (I think PhillyChief mentioned it), a utilitarian one. Religion makes people do good things, more than religion makes people do bad things, therefore it is good. Jefferson and many Deists thought this, even if they didn’t think the religion was true. I think Dennett isn’t decided on this, compared to other popular atheist authors.

I’d disagree with this idea, that religion is needed to do good, people doing good in the church would do it out of the church. I’d also point out that religion’s goal isn’t for the good, so if it happens to be, it wouldn’t have to be in the future. And finally, truth is important, to work out what’s good, to work out ways to make things better, for the good.

Steven Weinberg:Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

I agree and have a few issues with Blogger. That’s certainly one of them. Also, for those of you who also use it, does it bother you that when composing, we don’t have the option to cut and paste? You can paste something from other material, but if you simply want to cut a sentence you wrote in the middle of a paragraph and move it to the top, you can’t!

I really like this post a lot for the ideas it brings out. I was thinking this very thought this past week, because it is brought up in Hitchens latest book.

I believe we need to make an effort to exclude the obvious outlying data points. They are the easy targets for us to use, but they’re just as easy to defend against. If there is someone that is clearly a non-believer in their religion and is just manipulating people, I can’t see how you can argue the faults in that religion. It’s really just like when everyone points to stalin and we try to explain it away.

What Hitchens points out and PhillyChief you also brought up a bit (but then muddled the idea in your final paragraph) is the idea of consistency. One great example mentioned in your post is the witch trials or another mentioned by Hitchens is slavery in the USA. Both cases show a consistent action by the church as a whole to support the issue and not denounce it. Only when the tide of popular opinion was changing did the church change its stance, but they clearly were never “leading the way” for their congregations.

These are the examples I think we should be using and not some isolated example of human misconduct. They can refute an isolated case as an individual’s weakness, but consistent year after year of church action or non-action is impossible to not attribute to the religion itself.

I took a little vacation so sorry for the delay in responding. Also, you can see that I’m VERY new to blogging and the whole scene and I do share your gripes about blogger and I wish I had researched the options out there better. Oh well.

Once again to use atheism as a tool, I don’t think it’s enough to simply say the church is bad or the church was part of the problem when Stalin wanted to get them out of the way because I think the traditional response form the masses would be to either “clean house” but still keep the church or maybe replace with a new church. Using the idea of atheism, Stalin could say that no, we simply don’t need ANY church.

Personally, I think the scorecard thing isn’t satisfactory because even if religion’s overall score is higher on the good side, there are bad spikes that I don’t feel are worth it regardless.

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